Do you need a snowblower in Columbia, MO?
The machine for a Columbia driveway
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 2.3 tons of snow on this driveway in Columbia, spread over a few light falls. That is shovel work.
Get a wide plastic shovel with a bent handle before the first fall, and if you have a bad back, consider a cordless single-stage instead: the snow in Columbia is light enough for one.
How much snow Columbia gets
- Snow a year
- 17 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.6 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- almost never
- Days with snow on the ground
- 20
Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 2.0 times as much. It tends to stay, so each storm lands on the last one.
On a two car driveway that is about 2.3 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Columbia
- Oct0.1
- Nov0.8
- Dec3.5
- Jan5.9
- Feb4.8
- Mar2.0
- Apr0.3
Snow worth clearing runs from December to March, heaviest in January. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Towns near Columbia
Columbia is number 9 of 80 Missouri towns here for snowfall; St. Joseph gets the most at 21 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fulton, MO | 21 | 19 in | A shovel is enough |
| Jefferson City, MO | 27 | 9 in | A shovel is enough |
| Mexico, MO | 29 | 19 in | A shovel is enough |
| Moberly, MO | 33 | 15 in | A shovel is enough |
| Marshall, MO | 48 | 8 in | A shovel is enough |
| Sedalia, MO | 52 | 13 in | A shovel is enough |
Where these numbers come from
Read next: What a winter of snow weighs and Why storm depth matters more than snowfall.
NOAA 1991 to 2020 climate normals from Columbia U Of M, 0.5 miles from Columbia. A normal winter, not this winter's forecast. Snow is weighed at 6.24 pounds a cubic foot, fresh and fairly dry; wet spring snow can weigh three times that.